Untimely Dreams
by nb41
Summary: High Councilor-Paladin Fury and Councilor-Seer Coulson are tough nuts to crack, but Tony isn't the Dean of the School of Engineering for nothing. (Ghosts/Magical Earth AU)


This is a direct sequel to _There is No Lesson in Magic_ and will probably make a lot more sense if you read that first. Based on allofthefeelings-at-tumblr's Ghost Hunting AU. Implied Jane/Thor. Partly inspired by Robin McKinley's _Sunshine_. This is a ghosts/supernatural/magical world sort of AU-fusion thing.

I left this ambiguous enough to allow for platonic or romantic interpretations. I like the idea of the Seer/Fighter link being a fluid thing that's not rigid, and I wanted readers to have that same experience in choosing how it could be read. So, ship it or not, at your leisure.

* * *

Tony woke from the nightmare with a start to the pre-dawn dark of the master bedroom. He sucked in several unsteady breathes as his mind struggled to catch up to current events: one part of himself was screaming in panic as a greater apparition (a ghast?) reached for him, while another insisted that it wasn't real, none of it was real, he was in his bedroom and everything was okay. Eventually the later won, and he blinked against the sweat that had fallen into his eyes. All around him the dark room was motionless and quiet, and the temperature was perfect and the air undisturbed. He was safe.

He reached to his left and right and felt no one in bed. Though it was disappointing it wasn't a surprise; Pepper and Rhodey woke up well before dawn even on slow days. He almost never got up first. He didn't bother prodding at them along the bond they all shared, because if they started emoting towards him then he'd completely wake up and there'd be no hope of getting back to sleep.

Like every other time he had a nightmare he reminded himself Afghanistan was years ago and he was okay. It took a few repetitions of the prayer he'd been practicing for just such occasions, but eventually his heart rate slowed and the thought of closing his eyes didn't make his skin crawl.

He'd just laid back down when a warning pulse over the link hit him. A second later the bedroom light flipped on full force, and he heard Rhodey say, "Get up."

Tony blocked the light with a raised hand even as Rhodey yanked the comforter back. "What, God, what?"

"There's been a containment failure. Come on, Council's convening, but Coulson and Fury are on their way to talk to us first."

"Containment failure? Did another pack of mumblers get into the housing complex again, because that really doesn't qualify as—"

Pepper swept into the room. She was already dressed in her colors. "An L3-f apparition just attacked a Seer by the southeast tunnel entrance."

Tony stared wide-eyed between the two of them. "But...that's inside the inner wards."

"Yeah," Rhodey said.

"That's almost inside the _innermost_ ward, that's like—"

"It's the second to last set before the Vault and Chapel borders," Pepper said. She was holding a mug of hot coffee which smelled amazing. He looked at it, then her, and she rolled her eyes and offered it to him. The warmth of the ceramic against his hand helped keep the tremor he could feel deep inside him at bay.

"Is this an incursion? I thought the eclipse wasn't until next week."

"It's not an incursion," Pepper said, and the knot of anxiety that had been forming in Tony's stomach loosened. He took a sip; sure enough, there was a wake-up charm lurking in the caffeine. He bobbed his eyebrows at Pepper and had a longer drink.

"Okay, okay. L3-f. How did that not trip the outer alarms?"

"That's what the Council wants to know."

Tony blew out a breath. "Of course they do," he said, and levered himself out of bed. Not that it didn't make sense for the High Councilor and his Seer to request a meeting with Pepper, Rhodey, and Tony first. The School of Engineering had been instrumental in designing most of the intrusion detection systems as well as the wards themselves, and as the Dean of Engineering Tony was considered the authority on all such matters. "Do I have time for a shower?"

Rhodey said, "As long as it's a fast one. And wear your uniform."

"I can't just do this in a bathrobe?"

He'd been joking, but the way they both shot him a strong _No_ over the link brought home how serious the situation was. Tony sighed. Pepper took the mug back, and she and Rhodey left the room. He ran a hand over his face.

"JARVIS, I need a full spectral scan of all the wards, Vault and Chapel to Border Gateway. And get me all the security footage of the attack."

"Right away, sir. I should have it processed by the time you're dressed."

Tony showered extra fast to see if that estimation held true. Since JARVIS was the best construct in the Wards it did, and he went down to one of the conference rooms to view it. He found coffee and donut holes waiting, fresh from Barton's. He'd only had a chance to go through a couple of stills of the attack—the more interesting one involving the resolution, which didn't afford him a good look at the apparition itself—before Rhodey and Pepper came into the room with Councilors Fury and Coulson. Both of them were in their business attire (a long coat and casual suit of Paladin's wine red, ash gray, and black for Fury and a tailored suit in Seer's dark blue, gold, and deep green for Coulson), which meant the situation wasn't so dire they'd lacked time to change after cleanup.

"Mr. Stark," Coulson said. He had a tablet with him, but was shielding the contents from Tony.

"Stark," Fury said.

"Gentlemen." Tony got up and moved around the table to shake hands with them. "I assume you want to review the footage before we dive right in?"

" _I_ do, because I haven't seen it yet," Pepper said. Fury nodded and gestured at one of the displays.

"Phil can put the closest angle view up on your displays."

"Don't worry, JARVIS has it. JARVIS?"

What amused Tony about Fury and Coulson was they'd been paired so long their expressions often mirrored one another perfectly. For example, just then they both gave him thin-lipped looks of barely-contained annoyance. Tony said, "It's not like you didn't know I put monitoring equipment on every ward border," and gestured at the display. The security footage sprang to life, showing the southeast campus courtyard in stark shades of light and dark. "I mean, how else am I going to keep an eye on them."

Neither of them responded, they just kept giving him that look. He cleared his throat and took to watching the footage, though there was a pit forming in his stomach that said he wasn't going to like it. Sure enough, when the ghast bled out of the shadows into view he felt a twinge in his neck, followed quickly by gentle reassurance from Rhodey and Pepper over the link.

Of course it was a ghast. L3-f pretty much meant a ghast, or maybe a very powerful spectre, but a spectre might have been open to a conversation. It definitely wouldn't have made right for the nearest Seer; spectres tended to wander aimlessly until they bumped into something or someone. This kind of predatory behavior was very ghast-specific. And he should have expected it to be a ghast after the dream. He knew he was sensitive enough to get the warnings, especially after Afghanistan.

The ghast (ex-ghast, he told himself) rose up (was it singing?) and he had to dig his nails into his palm to keep watching.

"Pause," Pepper said, and the image of the howling ghast froze. Tony couldn't help but swallow, and tried to hide his reaction behind a sip of his coffee. He caught Coulson watching him, and Coulson surprised him: he nodded once, almost imperceptibly. Tony took to examining a spot on the conference table.

He'd seen apparitions that bad in Afghanistan. They'd torn through people like buzz saws and been immune to almost anything save properly forged artifacts. Those weren't exactly littering the ground anywhere and especially not in the Wilderness, so it had been a miracle he'd made it out alive. (A miracle in the form of his link to Pepper and Rhodey.)

That had been years ago and half a world away. He'd spent the intervening time telling himself that he wasn't on the run during the day and didn't need to hide himself in a cave at night. Ghasts weren't going to stumble upon him and drain him dry. Wailers weren't going to scream until he went deaf. Things were okay.

Except this had happened on the other side of a Warded zone, less than three miles away from where he was sitting and within spitting distance of the Vault border.

Rhodey's voice brought him back to the present. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing."

Coulson left off watching Tony. "What do you think you're seeing?"

Pepper and Rhodey exchanged a glance. Tony felt the link tense for a moment. Pepper said, "An L3-f ghast summoning a lesser apparition and directing it."

"Based on what the Champions and Seer who were there told us, yes," Fury said. "That's exactly what you're seeing."

Tony reminded himself again that he was in a perfectly safe place, especially with Pepper _and_ Rhodey _and_ Fury right there. Nothing was going to get him or Coulson. They were both fine. He turned his coffee cup in his hands.

Rhodey waved a hand at the display. "Great. Now they're communicating? Calling one another for reinforcements?" He blew out a breath. His frustration through the link turned inward, which was a sign the entire situation was bothering him. "Defense has never seen anything like that before, I promise you. Has the Council?"

Coulson shook his head. "We're assuming that's how it got through the borders. Something's changed."

Tony felt Rhodey and Pepper both try to preemptively soothe him, and he pointedly chose to ignore them. "You shouldn't be _assuming_ anything," he snapped. The room went dead silent for a second as he fought to get himself under control. When he thought he wasn't going to launch into a tirade, he said, "I retune those every time there's new data from the SHIELD Council _or_ Defense, precisely so I don't get woken up in the middle of the night for this kind of thing."

Coulson's grip on his tablet tightened. "You could share your specs with us instead of insisting we call you any time we have a question—"

Tony interrupted him, saying, "Hey, yeah, speaking of transparency," he skipped the video ahead to a still of the lightning bolt blasting the ghast, "since when does this Ward have an _elementalist_ paladin?"

"Champion," Fury reminded him.

The casual tone of Fury's correction combined with Pepper and Rhodey's continuous refrain of reassurance and had the net effect of calming him down. He took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and muttered, "Paladin sounds better."

Patiently, Rhodey said, "We've been over this. Leadership thinks it's too religious."

Tony sniffed. "Well they're perfectly entitled to their wrong opinions." He pointed at the still. "And look at him, he's huge and using a hammer and magic and everything. He's clearly a paladin."

"He's been with us for a few months," Fury said. He sounded like he had zero intention of engaging in any form of debate over appropriate terminology. "He's...not from around here."

Tony thought that over. Canada was a possibility, but something in Fury's voice suggested that was too close. "European? Russian?"

Coulson looked askance at Fury. Fury nodded, and Coulson said, "Asgardian."

The whole link reverberated with surprise. Tony found his voice first. "I'm sorry, did you say Asgard? As in, we're-putting-an-impenetrable-magic-bubble-over-our-country-and-never-coming-back-out Asgard? The only place that was radio silent through the whole Event? That island in the Norwegian Sea everyone mostly forgets even exists at this point because it's been over a thousand years since we've seen anyone come out? _That_ Asgard?"

Coulson said, "Remember that New Moon incursion six months ago?"

Rhodey groaned. "Who could forget that, there was a tornado," he said. "In the middle of the night, a tornado, and it closed a breach _and_ took out one hell of an apparition." Coulson gestured at the screen, and Rhodey blinked. "Seriously? That was _him_?"

Now _that_ was interesting. "JARVIS," Tony said, "We have footage of that?"

"Indeed we do sir."

"Spool it up for later, would you?" Tony leaned on the table. "So, if he's from Asgard, does that mean they're trying to rejoin humanity?"

"We don't know," Fury said. "And honestly, we're not even sure they're human anymore. They've been cut off from all of us under that bubble for so long, anything could have happened to them during the Event."

"Well, the Council being what it is, I assume you've already interrogated him fifteen times, so what did he say?"

" _Tony_ ," Pepper said on a sigh. Rhodey ducked his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. As annoyed as Pepper was, Tony could feel that Rhodey agreed with him on this particular topic. Of course, that was because Defense was no better when it came to 'perceived threats to Ward security', or whatever their bullshit line was on any given day, and Rhodey wasn't on board with it.

Fury's eye narrowed a fraction. Coulson said, "I know you don't like all of our methods, but in his case, we didn't dare. Not after that display during the incursion. We asked him a few polite questions, which he largely declined to answer." One corner of Coulson's mouth twitched in a smile. "He's a little cagey."

Pepper was considering the still again. "Is he stuck here?"

"It's not clear," Fury said. "But he seemed to be under the impression it'd be better for him to stay and help us."

Tony couldn't help but allow some of the skepticism he and Pepper were echoing over the bond creep into his voice. "Really. He wants to be out here in ghost world rather than living it up in his magical island country with a ward that nothing can get through."

Fury gave Stark a small smile. "I've got theories as to why."

"Such as?"

"He caught a glimpse of the Tesseract when we were moving it into the Vault. And he definitely recognized it."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Tesseract spent fifty years in the Vatican before we convinced them to move it here, and was sitting in some Norwegian church for who knows how long before that. How could he know what it is if he's from a country that's been under lockdown for a millennia?"

"An excellent question," Coulson said. "Which is why when he said he wanted to hang out, we didn't say no."

Another puzzle to chew over. Tony took a drink of coffee. "So. Who was attacked?"

"Foster. She's in astrophysics."

"Unpaired?" Pepper asked, and Fury nodded, She made a face. Tony knew what she was thinking even though their link wasn't fully telepathic bond: unpaired Seers were huge shining beacons to powerful apparitions.

Coulson indicated the screen with a jerk of his head. "But we're more interested in determining why it went after her instead of the Chapel."

Tony ran a hand through his hair. "Could be a lot of reasons. Maybe she was in the Vault or the Chapel earlier in the day—"

"She never goes to either unless she absolutely has to," Coulson said.

"No artifacts in the Astronomy facility to rub off on her?"

Fury shook his head. Tony folded his arms. "Well, this isn't a mess, or anything."

"When's the Council meeting with Defense?" Rhodey said.

"Later today, at one, via video and telepathic conference. We were hoping you three could make it. Especially if you have any useful findings."

"Well, he blasted the hell out of it—was there anything left for a sample?"

"There was," Fury said.

Coulson swept his hand across his tablet. "And the test results are on their way to you now."

"Any chance I can get my hands—"

Fury said, "It was a very _small_ sample, and now it's in the Vault. The test data should be sufficient for your needs."

Naturally. What they really didn't want was Tony having access to traces of Asgardian magic to poke and prod at, and he knew they knew that's what he was aiming for. But he still had to try.

Rhodey and Pepper tapped at him through the bond. Tony didn't bother trying to muddy the link by digging his heels in, though he made sure his assent was reluctant. Rhodey was the one who responded. "We'll be at the meeting."

"Thank you," Fury said, and Tony thought it sounded sincere. Of course, you could never tell with the High Councilor. He considered the lightning bolt again, and in particular the two women curled up on the ground. Not a single thread of plasma was arcing off in their direction.

"Did you test them already?" he asked.

Fury arched a brow at him. Tony said, "She's unlinked. I'm assuming since he's in no hurry to get back to Asgard and there's no one obviously hanging around him that he is too. Yet somehow he showed up in time to help them with an L3-f. So. Did you test them?"

Sounding like he wanted to roll his eyes, Coulson said, "You know we can't answer that."

"That would be a yes," Tony said, "and, it was a good match." Coulson's expression remained impassive. Tony tried staring, which got him nowhere. He sighed explosively and moved to the donut box. "Fine, keep your secrets. But I've never seen an elementalist use magic that close to a friendly and there be no collateral damage. Except, you know," he flicked a glance at Fury, "when they're linked."

Fury gave him nothing. Pepper said, "He's Asgardian, maybe their elementalists are just good at that." She followed that up with a prod over the link.

Rhodey added, "There wasn't a single other person hurt by that tornado."

Tony shrugged and pretended to be more interested in his donut hole choices: chocolate sandcastle, plain cake, glazed, strawberry cake, and cinnamon. Fury gave Tony a tired look and turned to go. "We'll see you at one," he said over his shoulder.

Tony said, "I'll see if I can make it," and popped a glazed donut hole into his mouth. Coulson squinted at him, then followed after Fury. Pepper glared at Tony as she and Rhodey got up and went to show them out. Tony decided obvious impatience from Coulson was as much of a reaction as he could have hoped for and counted it as a win.

Rhodey's segment of the link radiated frustration once he and Pepper returned. " _Why_ do you always try to antagonize them." He sat heavily and took out a trio of donut holes (two chocolate sand and one plain cake). "We really don't need grief with the SHIELD Council, we really don't."

"Who was antagonizing?"

Rhodey pointed at him, physically _and_ mentally. "You. You were antagonizing."

"I was not."

Pepper felt less frustrated with him but no less exasperated. "You know how they're going to respond to those kinds of questions, so there's only one reason to ask them."

"I don't _know_ for sure, statistically speaking there's always a slim chance they might cave, and anyways it's called a tell, I was looking for one."

Now the whole link from the two of them to him was one concerted pulse of _Stop_. He made a face and took his seat. "Fine, whatever. But they're a good match, you wait and see. I can tell these sorts of things." He snapped his fingers, which brought the three displays around so they each had one to look at. "Okay, JARVIS. Let's have a look."


End file.
